Asymmetrical Information

Also, while they have (or had) plenty of ammunition and explosives, they're depleting their stores and won't be able to replenish easily, if at all.

One of the best books on this topic is "Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare" by Bard O'Neill.

A proper insurgency can be quite expensive, in money and materiel. However, a good point is that if you don't have enough true believers to carry out your preferred tactics, then it's only a matter of time. Furthermore, this insurgency is starting to wither away at its most important commodity, Iraqi support. Every time the Zarqawi terrorists blow up a bomb meant to kill every-day Iraqi's trying to improve their country and their lot in life (i.e. policemen, politicians, women washing clothes on a US base because it pays hard currency) they bring their own demise a little bit closer. My thoughts are that this insurgency has already seen its pinnacle.

For the last insurgency campaign I was in charge of we were running a $10 million burn rater per month, which included health and dental benefits for all our insurgents.

We supply three meals a day plus a new blanket each month to pray on. However, we do not supply any water for bathing as it seemed that our employees did not like taking showers.

Originally our largest expense was for velcro to strap suicide bombs on our employees bodies but we cut those costs dramatically by switching to duct tape, as our research showed that the reusability benefit of velco was wasted in these endeavors.

It will be fascinating to read the history of this conflict in 30 years, after all the conventional wisdom has been stripped away. I suspect that the extra months Bush spent with the U.N. (ironic, given the criticism Bush has received for being too given to unitaleralism) will be shown to have given the Baathists crucial time to better prepare for their guerilla efforts, and to firm up support among the jihadists and the Syrian Baathists.

I also suspect that the "too few troops" trope will be exposed as being entirely simplistic. It wasn't that there were too few troops; the critical problem was Turkey's refusal to allow the 4th Infantry Division to invade from the north, which gave the Baathists time to consolidate and regroup in their home territory as the invasion came solely from the south. I too suspect that the Baathists ability to wage guerilla war has peaked, but as is usually the case in waging war, delays and unexpected impediments have cost blood and treasure.

I was muchly joyed to see how little disruption the guerrillas were able to cause on Election Day. Surely, if there was a day to pull out all the stops, that was it - but a big wet firecracker was all they managed. (I pause to remember, in silence, that forty-some people did lose their lives that day. RIP. May their deaths always be remembered and not ever be considered "empty.")

But none of the signs of weakness in the terrorists' ranks should allow us to become complacent, to state the obvious; the "cornered rat" analogy ought still to apply.

Ahmed - funny, dude :)

Not to be too flip here, but how is one qualified to render an opinion on this?

Newsweek wasn't quite on the cutting edge with all aspects of the story.

""""I suspect that the extra months Bush spent with the U.N. (ironic, given the criticism Bush has received for being too given to unitaleralism) will be shown to have given the Baathists crucial time . . .""""

Tim's on the right track. Go to the Belmont Club for a very detailed analysis (http://belmontclub.blogspot.com).

Seconding David M and Roderick Reilly and providing a permalink; those who really want to understand, avoid the MSM, and read the Belmont Club.

Will Allen is completely correct. It was all someone else's fault.

Also, while they have (or had) plenty of ammunition and explosives, they're depleting their stores and won't be able to replenish easily, if at all.

Now, see:

"Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing, official says"

"Reporter saw insurgents loot Qaqaa arms depot" (The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area. The facility was bombed during last year’s invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. “There’s definitely no shortage of weapons around here,” he said.)

What happened to Iraq's arsenal?

Well, let's look at this in terms of logistics. Let's also assume that the weapons themselves are the easy part and that they are readily avaiable, so lets not allocate any cash at all for the aquisition and care of those.

For each insurgent, you must provide 2000 calories of food per day, and 3 liters of water.

For each insurgent, you must provide, safe houses and transportation to and from staging areas for attacks.

For each 15 insurgents you must provide someone ho provides management and communication.

So my guess is you can keep an insurgent in the field for very little cash, so long as they volunteer. if they are mercenary, and require increasing sums of cash to bolster their motivation, the whole equation falls apart pretty quick.

My guess is that now its almost all mercenary, and low grade ones at that.

Lone Whacko,

You're correct, there was a lot of looting of the huge weapons stores that Saddam and friends had accumulated. There would have been a lot less had we not wasted six months arguing WMDs at the UN, and if Turkey had let the 4 ID pass through into the north of Iraq at the start of the invasion as planned. But it's also true that Saddam knew the invasion was coming and planned for it by hiding weapons all over. My favorite is from Maj. Pearson's briefing a few days before the Presidential election,

"The particular one that we worked with in northwest Baghdad, in the Hammer Brigade's area of operation, was housing development that was under construction.  We took out of one house alone over 7 million rounds of AK-47 rounds -- out of one house, built into the walls of the house, very large area.  Took about three days.  There was all sorts of ammunition, to include the types that we are talking about here, scattered throughout that.  And that was just the one location. We also found them in multiple sites within and around Baghdad."

Just what every new home owner wants, the latest in kitchen applicances and easy access to a few million rounds of ammo. I haven't been able to figure out if this was low income housing in a bad neighborhood or golf course condos where the potential buyers planned on extreme measures to keep the riff raff out.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2004/10/iraq-041029-dod01.htm

But in order for the "insurgents" (forget it, I'm calling them "guerrillas" from here on out) - in order for the guerrillas to have access to all hidden stores of materiel, they'd also have to be able to move about freely, get to the storehouses, load up, and return to their havens, wherever those may be (like Fallujah maybe?), and which must be big enough to store what they've collected.

The fact that they've been able to do this, to at least some extent so far, and have been able to since the get-go, was one of the first lines of evidence I used for an ongoing al Qaeda presence in Iraq. (Ahem:) This being Jane's blog, and my inference being OT, I'm not going to go into it here, but I'd sure love it if anybody interested would come read what I just scribbled down as Entry 1 of my own blog: http://thelipstickrepublican.blogspot.com/

Gosh, I never considered what an embarrassing name that was going to be in print.

I too suspect that the Baathists ability to wage guerilla war has peaked

Let's hope this is correct this time in a way it wasn't after the attack on Fallujah, the capture of Saddam Hussein, etc. Only time will tell.

Brittain33:

The one critical datum we have now that we didn't have after Fallujah or the capture of Saddam was the miserable showing the guerrillas made on Election Day. You're right, of course, though: only time WILL tell.

Don't miss Belmont Club's take on the Newsweek story. As usual, Wretchard has some pretty insightful things to say.

Money paragraph:

"But I think the main problem with the Newsweek analysis is that first, it doesn't fully recognize the significance of the economy of force operation against the Sunnis in April, 2004 as the US dealt with Sadr first in mid-year before returning to crush the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah by year-end. It was a classic example of using a small force to defeat a numerically superior foe by attacking them in detail. I hope future historians give it its due. Secondly, Newsweek almost ignores American political warfare. The establishment of the Interim Governing Council and the Elections had huge military implications from the start, something which is only being belatedly recognized. The strategic center of gravity of the American thrust into the Middle East was not Iraq the geographical entity, as so many have I believe, mistakenly put it, but the Iraqis. The war aim was access to an alliance with an unlimited pool of Arabic speakers, not a puddle of oil in the ground. The return of Iraqi security and intelligence forces will be a nightmare for regional dictators in the short term; but the advent of even a quasi-democratic Iraqi state will, without exaggeration, be their death-knell."

I think much too much is being made of the election day violence. 40 is still a large number of deaths for one day. At home, our whole nation was worried about an Anthrax bomber who killed a few people over a period of a couple of weeks. Yes, I am aware that things could have been worse and they promised worse, but how can we be so sure this wasn't a tacitical choice? Security was extremely high and no one can be that vigilant every day. Isn't it at least possible that some decided it was too risky to attempt that day?

My general sense has always been that guerilla wars are relatively cheap to run. Outside influences can supply money and material as needed if they want to keep the instability going. Supply chains end up being really difficult to disrupt (it seems that half of The Best and The Brightest is, "[General X] thought that bombing the supply trails would dry up North Vietnamese support; the bombing had no effect," repeated over and over again with rotating generals.) I suspect what matters is will, of the fighters and the "sea of people" in which they swim. Unless the Sunnis get happier, I wouldn't get too hopeful. But I hope you're right.

I doubt the insurgents are running out of money or people. A year or so ago public estimates were of some 5,000 hardcore rebels. Since then we have killed or capruted many times that numbers and the attacks have only increased in number and intensity.

It seems that every time something like this happens (end of major operatiosn, killing of Uday, capture of Saddam, turnover of power) hopes go up that this time things will be different.

Hi,

I don't know how much it takes to fund an insurgency, but I know that the U.S. can more than match it!

Please, please, please use your connections with the Bush Administration ;-) to get them to have Congress pull all the U.S. grunts out of Iraq, and replace them with a 500,000 or 1,000,000 person Iraqi police/military force with salaries paid by the U.S. government.

The U.S. should do this for the next two years, and then completely stop even that. I call it a "$7 billion solution for Iraq" (but I admit it would cost more than that if we paid 1,000,000 people, rather than 500,000):

http://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2004/09/a_7_billion_sol.html

Mark

P.S. My plan got a "Praise Allah!" review from one of the writers at Reason magazine (Tim Cavanaugh?), so you know it's got to be good!

Hyperlink for the "$7 billion solution for Iraq"

$7 billion (or thereabouts) solution for Iraq

Trying again on that hyperlink

Geez! I give up. There's a direct link if you click on my name for this comment. (I think!)

Arms: Saddam had an estimated 1.2 million tons of arms in depots. If you assume that the insurgents only took 2% that makes 24,000 tons. That should last a while longer.

Men: Latest estimate I read was 20,000 fighters plus 200,000 passive support. Have also read of insurgents from Chechnya & Jordan being caught, which implies that manpower can be reinforced from outside Iraq.

Money: Don't know, but Saddam & sons did make some major withdrawals before the war. Would also guess that funds will come in from contiguous countries.

My take on election day is that the security was tight enough with only 'official' cars being allowed to drive & borders being sealed. That works great for a short period.

We should know within 2 months though. If the US death toll goes down dramatically to less than 40 per month, that would imply the insurgency has spent most of its capital.

What's up with the USACTION ad on the right. It says Fox won't run it, but I saw it 3 times tonight on Foxnews. In primetime. Unless they're differentiating between Fox and Foxnews. But I doubt it.

The Newsweek piece is consistent with the view that Bin Laden's cronies regard the Iraq campaign as a means to their end, the overthrow of Saudi leadership. Their 9/11 campaign was a means to THEIR end, the overthrow of Saudi leadership.

This turmoul in Iraq furthers THEIR goal. Al Quaeda participation in Iraq can now taper off somewhat - - experience from the Afgani campaign against the Soviets undoubtedly was a big help initially. Greater Iraqi participation lets Al Quaeda concentrate on bigger issues. So the phrase "how the Ba'athists took over the insurgency" is an erroneous perspective.

Sending a few kids from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, now and then, also can be a means to THEIR end, especially in dealing with the impressionable in Saudi Arabia(A comparable American kid, in hearing about a buddy going off to Iraq, would say, "This rebellion stuff is NEAT ! ")

A few days after Fallujah fell an American military guy stated that he was already seeing the decline of insurgent incidents. Why does the military let such mouthing off occur? We probably witnessed wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is a definite element in our problems.

I keep hearing that, "44 people were killed on election day" and that 9 of these 44 were terrorists blown up by their explosives. So these 9 terrorists killed no more than 35 others(Supposedly one person died from a mortar round, etc.)

Assuming that the numbers 9 and 44 are valid, how come the news people do not deduct the 9 from the 44 to say that "35 peolple were killed on election day" ? Is this mainstream media wishful thinking?

Willie B. Goode:

The guerrillas can't win on military strength - no one I've heard has argued differently. If they're to win, they have to win by getting us OUT while simultaneously either winning over or intimidating a sizeable enough proportion of ordinary Iraqis that they can operate relatively freely to gain/regain power. al-Zarqawi made significant threats before the elections because he knew, based on readily available polling data and, I have to assume, his own ears in the area, that Iraqis were generally failing to be intimidated, and that they were pro-election enough that he could not count on them to be won over (especially since he's been targeting them). He and al Qaeda had so very much to lose on Election Day - I see no credible way to interpret their lack of success in making good on their pre-election threats but insufficiency of one kind or another to make good on them.

That is, either he physically couldn't get enough human bombs out there to make the showing he wanted to, or he had to decide, based on heightened security, that it wasn't worth spending his *increasingly precious* human assets on attacks that were likely to fail. Either way, he suffered a HUGE credibility blow, the Iraqis proved to themselves that they had (a) the courage and (b) the ability to withstand his threats, and once the transitional assembly starts work, he's going to have an even harder time working his will in a nation that's busy writing a constitution for itself and has clearly rejected his statements about the un-Muslimness of democracy.

Can you imagine his consternation when he saw the G.I. Cody doll reports? I know if I were he, I'd be punching walls and shrieking, "Of ALL days for them to pull something so pathetic...!"

Jaime,
I realize well that the militants can't beat us head to head. Guerilla wars aren't fought that way. They can, however, inflict enough casualties and make us decide that its not worth what we are spending in terms of money and men to stay. It does't matter if they win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people a wit. You are assuming their goal it to take over Iraq. I am not so sure that it is. Some of them may simply want us out. Others may want to form a separate Shiite republic. Others may simply be thugs who enjoy killing Americans. Neither you nor I can know this for certain. What we do know for certain is that they want our troops dead and this is impacted much by women with purple fingers.

Again, I am not sure what the real signifcance of the level of violence on election day is. A pretty substantial number of people were killed, after all. Most democracies would be gnashing their teeth over 30 someodd deaths by bombing on election day. Yes, the elections went forward, but not without a price. To show that they aren't impotent, the insurgents manged to kill about a dozen Iraqi soldiers and a couple of policemen yesterday, as well as a couple of our Marines. Clearly, they are still a potent force. We still worry about terrorist groups making threats even though they have done nothing to hurt us since 9/11.
Whether this is a credibility blow for Zarqawi doesn't really matter much. It was never a country wide popular movement. Our most strident foes have always been the Sunnis, a distinct minority. The demographics of Iraq combined with its history pretty much assured us that the Kurds would never be our foes unless we did something bad to them and the Sunnis weren't likely to be our biggest threat either. The elections turnout bears this out. Kurds and Shiites voted heavily. Sunnis didn't. Our threat was never from the purple finger people but from Sunnis extremists and the foreign terrorists crossing into Iraq. These people who voted in large numbers generally don't live in areas that support the insurgency, so their rejection of Zarqawi's wishes means little.

I am also not so confident of your assessment the human assets becoming "increasingly precious". There doesn't seem to any slowdown in the flow of foreign recruits and our own intelligence has constantly underestimated the strength of the indiginous fighters. In short, I think this elections, while a good step for the people of Iraq, don't signifcantly alter the danger we face.

Also worth remembering the Saddam had most of the cash in dollars - which has lost a fair bit of value against the Iraqi dinar recently. this cant be helping either.

what the election showed was the (so far largely latent) capability of the Iraqis -- the Baath/Islamo fascists can't win a guerilla war against the Iraqis -- the Iraqis can't 'decide it's not worth the cost and go home', it IS their home.

so, assuming some attenuation of the 'insurgents' capabilities, and a general strengthening of the Iraq/US force -- the RATIO of capabilities (loosely speaking) will trend to the benefit of the good guys ..

The 3 step political process (election, constitution-writing, final gov't installation) in Iraq is the most important international event since the end of the Cold War (you can quote me)

Jody,

Maybe Megan can start a new thread specifically related to that blog ad that misrepresents Bush's call for ending frivolous lawsuits. Nowhere has Bush called for ending lawsuits based on negligence. And even the tort reformers haven't gone that far--all they want ot do is to cap the "damages" for pain and suffering, not economic damages. "Economic" damages refer to quantifiable expenses (past, present, and future) such as lost wages, medical bills, etc. I have never seen a proposal to cap economic damages. The reason why the plaintiff's bar is against capping damages for pain and suffering is because that is where their attorney fees come from.

The 3 step political process (election, constitution-writing, final gov't installation) in Iraq is the most important international event since the end of the Cold War (you can quote me)

God Lord. Bush sycophany has reached its zenith.

Earl:

Not only am I not a Bush sycophant, I didn't even mention him in my post.

Other than that, your post is 100% accurate.

Not only am I not a Bush sycophant, I didn't even mention him in my post.

Other than that, your post is 100% accurate.

Of course it is. One needed mention someone by name to have a slavish devotion to them. Calling this election the most important international event since the end of the Cold War is just ludicrous and comes straight from the Bush admininstration/RNC talking points.

This may likely be the most important political event of this generation, in conjunction with the Afghan elections, and you can quote me as well. I for one have long maintained that the emergence of democracy (and eventually democratic institutions) in these two places will mark the beginning of history's final push towards eliminating autocratic and totalitarian ideologies around the planet. The FSU is experiencing velvet revolution after revolution (Belarus, Uzbekistan: pick your color), Iranian students have to now be actively suppressed from speaking out about reform, and it is only a matter of time before Dear Leader loses it. Now, there may be more violence before it is all said and done, but these elections point to one thing: Democracy in the center of the arc of instability, states that will overnight have the magnetism to influence the civil societies of all those nasty little autocracies all around them, with the citizens of Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia all screaming out "me too"! Maybe I'm just being a bit mushy, but anytime you give 75 million people true freedom to find their own way for the first time, it’s a big freaking event that should be remembered.

Earl:

'Calling this election the most important international event since the end of the Cold War is just ludicrous..'

That is an assertion, not an argument. If I say 'Earl is an idiot.', it doesn't make you one.

Sooooooo,can you:
1) identify another event that you believe is more important?
or,
2) offer an argument that serves to illustrate that the first real, free election in a major Arab state is UNIMPORTANT?
or,
3) anything at all to back up your statement.

just curious.

While I'm not earl, and I am a Bush supporter, and I think the election was quite important, I'll go to bat to shoot down "the most important international event since the end of the cold war" because I too find the assertion ludicrous.

International events that are either more important or arguably as important as the Iraqi elections (in no particular order other than number 1)
1) 9/11
2) US Election 2004
3) Spanish Election 2004
4) Australian Election 2004
5) Afghan Election 2003
6) Death of Arafat
7) Sudan genocide
8) Tsunami 2004
9) Creation of the EU
10) Expansion of NATO
11) Creation of WTO
12) Success of Polish reforms
13) Rwanda
14) Revelation of UN Oil for Food Scandal
15) Both invasions of Iraq
16) Somalia
17) Construction of the wall in Israel (a good thing)
18) Taliban conquers Afghanistan
19) Our invasion of Afghanistan
20) End of apartheid in South Africa
21) Confirmation of North Korean bomb
22) India/Pakistan test their nukes.
23) Growth of Walmart
24) Launch of Windows 95 (first PC usable by the average shmo)
25) SE Asia currency collapse
26) Launch of IS-95 (a wireless standard)
27) Libya voluntarily dismantles their nuclear program
28) NAFTA
29) 802.11
30) Dolly is cloned.
31) Collapse of the stock market bubble
32) Fizzle of Y2K

I can go on, but I rather not abuse Jane's bandwidth.

"I'll go to bat to shoot down..."

And I'll apparently mix my metaphors while I'm doing it...

I am not Earl, either and I can't do a better job than Jody as her(or his?) list contained almost everything mine would have,although I do have to disagree vehemently with the assertion that the Iraqi elections are the most important world even since the end of the Cold War. (By the way, what date/time period are you using for the end of that? Depending upon when it is, Jody's list could expand dramatically.) Personally, I don't see how 9/11 can't be the most important world event, especially since, without 9/11, the Iraqi invasion and therefore, the elections, may never have even happened.

ooops, how could I have overlooked the 'growth of WalMart'?

lol

JonofAtlanta:

I'm serious about Walmart. The growth of this one super low cost retailer contributed most of the US's and the world's productivity growth and improved the lives of billions of people. Similarly it is bringing capitalism to China, dramatically shifting the shape of global trade (a significant percentage of our trade deficit is because of Walmart imports).

Its constant demands for low prices have held down inflation and helped accelerate the depreciate the price of big ticket items so that the lives of the masses have been improved. Further their emphasis on low costs have caused ripples of efficiency gains in virtually all sectors of the economy.

Now, Walmart is almost single handedly bringing RFID technology to the commercial world, a technology that will again improve the efficiency of mankind's most important activity - food gathering.

Eamon: I'm a guy. Jody's a nickname for James.

I think the relevant "burn rate" for the terrorists in Iraq is people, not money. This information is very hard to find, but the Belmont Club post suggests that the terrorists have taken ~15,000 casualties, with unknown desertion, etc in the last year. Lots of senior leaders, bombmakers, etc have been captured or killed in recent months, and the Falluja refuge has been recaptured. My belief is that it's not entirely trivial for terrorists to recruit and train new fighters, especially after propaganda blows like Falluja and the recent elections.

If I had an omniscient view of the Iraq conflict, the statistic I'd be tracking more than anything else is operational experience of terrorists in the field. When this starts trending downward, the terrorist campaign will be hard to sustain.

Zach: If I had an omniscient view of the Iraq conflict, the statistic I'd be tracking more than anything else is operational experience of terrorists in the field. When this starts trending downward, the terrorist campaign will be hard to sustain.

So would using a retarded suicide bomber be a good data point for your statistic?

That little item definitely caught my eye. Again, there isn't much information on this even if you're looking for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if terrorists organized themselves with a well-experienced "support staff" and a short-experienced set of front-line fighters / suicide bombers.

Any sign that the terrorists are nearing the end of their available manpower is a hopeful sign in my book.

Jody, Sorry!

and a short-experienced set of front-line fighters / suicide bombers.

Exactly where do experienced suicide bombers come from? Isn't the goal of a suicide bomber to die?

How long can the Iraqi insurgency last? How long has the IRA insurgency lasted in Northern Ireland? How long did the Afghanis hold out against the Soviet Onion?

Its my understanding that there are still a huge amount of unsecured weapons depots in Iraq. The shortage of "major" attacks on Election day was mainly due to the ban on the use of private vehicles on election day, and the cultural blocks of Iraqi voters i.e. Iraqis tend to live among their own kind of muslims. The fact is there were 15 suicide bombers that killed 40 people on election day, the low bodycount was due to the fact that suicide bombers on foot can't carry near the amount of explosives as suicide cars can. There were no international observers in Iraq, the election is not legitimate and is only considered successful because of the expectation of a bloodbath.

Imo the insugency in Iraq will continue to grow. They are still recieving weapons, soldiers, and financing from Syria, Iran, and SA. They have killed more US soldiers in the past month, then in any month since the start of the occupation. Unless you believe that helicopter and Brit plane just happened to crash just prior to the election. They executed a bus load of Iraqi military today. Many of the Iraqi candidates didnt release any personal photos, and many refused to have their name on the ticket until the day of the election. As soon as election winners are announced, there will likely be a wave of assassinations.

Exploring burn rate theory by practical experiment sounds good. A serendipitous by-product would be a massive female electoral majority. All true feminists should get behind this.

Comments are Closed.